PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

The girl’s attitude had completely changed since both of them had given up their hostility in the past, but the contrast between her almost bestial aggressiveness and her cheerful appearance now was so great that it was a bit disconcerting, or at least that would be the case if it wasn′t Desmond who was next to her.

Desmond was used to people with strange and spontaneous personalities just from having dealt with Athena and Kyuru in the last week, and he himself was not the most emotionally stable person on the planet so he could relate to strange mood swings.

Yet Desmond didn’t even think twice before weaving a simple lie: “I came to join the sect, so far I have trained by myself and have never formally learned martial arts.”

Desmond didn’t even think twice before weaving a simple lie: “I came to join the sect until now I have trained by myself and have never formally learned martial arts.”

But Desmond seemed to have underestimated the acute instincts of Mei who did not buy his lie at all, similar to Desmond, Mei was a girl with powerful innate instincts and she would not be so easily fooled.

Besides just from their previous exchange it was obvious to her that Desmond has some kind of combat training and although she did not recognize Desmond’s style due to their previous exchange being too short; she had a feeling that Desmond’s training was by no means something that happened overnight.

“Oh, then why do you want to join the sect? Why do you want to be strong? ” Mei asked in a seemingly unconcerned way.

Sensing something in Mei’s tone of voice, Desmond realized that lying could not only get him in trouble but also waste the opportunity to join the sect with Mei’s help so this time he decided to tell the truth ... well, part of the truth.

.....

“There is something I must do, I need to become stronger to protect what I love, and joining the sect will help me achieve my goals,” Desmond said this time with a sincere voice.

Mei seemed to feel the conviction in Desmond’s words and remembering her own circumstances she felt that she and Desmond were more alike than she thought, this feeling turned into an instinctive affection for Desmond.

The conversation soon shifted to other topics as the two of them got to know each other a little better on the way to the sect, according to Mei, she had gone out to run some errands for the sect to a nearby town and was on her way back when she met Desmond and now they weren′t too far from the sect.

Along the way, Desmond asked Mei a couple of questions about the sect and after a brief explanation from the girl, Desmond discovered that the roaming cloud sect and other sects in this world were very similar to the sects in martial arts novels.

There was a sect master, elders, deacons, core disciples, inner disciples, outer disciples, and servants; the hierarchy of all these was precisely in the order in which they were mentioned.

If there was something that caught Desmond’s attention, it is that the martial arts sects in this world are also considered kingdoms to some extent, with populations under their rule and protection; as well as clear territorial limits.

The fights between the sects were the equivalent of an entire national war with victims that numbered in the thousands, of course for the scale of the wars in Desmond’s world this number was little, but in this world these numbers were horrendous.

Although Mei clarified that such wars did not occur frequently since no sect could afford that kind of human loss, especially when it came to high-level members of said sects, each of these individuals was not different from a weapon in human form and innumerable efforts and resources were required for such people to reach that level; Since many of these efforts and resources come from the sects to which they belonged, it was obvious that they would suffer a great loss from the downfall of any of these individuals.

Even if that was the case, this did not mean that there was peace between the sects, on the contrary, they frequently had conflicts over issues of resources or territories, that was especially the case when powerful natural treasures were discovered in sensitive territories.

But when this happened, the sects limited the conflict to the minimum possible, being almost always the case in which they used their disciples to compete for said resources, since it does not matter how great or powerful such a treasure was; There was seldom a time when such a treasure was worth as much as a war could cost.

From Mei, he also heard a little about the culture of the place and as he had thought before this place was not very different from ancient China, at least from his superficial knowledge of course; Martial strength was revered here and those with sufficient martial power could become masters of their sects and found their kingdoms.

At least that had been the case on numerous occasions, of course, there are always exceptions, Mei briefly mentioned that in the past there were kingdoms that were run by royal families who did not necessarily have the martial power necessary to rule but were loved and respected by the people making their kingdom accepted, there were also powerful warriors who settled in that kingdom because they found the environment pleasant and ended up serving the kingdom after having their families there.

Such a thing sounded incredibly good, but there was a problem, such a kingdom did not fit this world’s standards, in the end when this kingdom found a gigantic magic metal mine in its territory it was unable to hide the news.

In a short time, the hungry and greedy wolves came knocking on its doors, the kingdom tried to take things calmly and peacefully but that was only perceived as weakness by those who coveted its treasures; in the end, the kingdom was almost entirely wiped out when a coalition of sects declared war on them under a fabricated pretext.

Such was the importance of martial force in this world, related to the issue of martial force Desmond encountered an unexpected inconvenience, during the test to enter the sect one of the most basic requirements was to measure the examinee’s aura or Ki as it was. called in this world.

The problem was that Desmond had no aura or Ki at all, his current strength and abilities were based on mana, if he took the test, not only would he be rejected but he would have to explain how he was so strong without the use of aura which would lead to more problems.

It took almost two hours for the two of them to reach a small plateau overlooking the outer walls of the sect and Desmond had yet to find a viable plan to evade the sect’s inspection.

It was not until they were near the entrance to the sect wall that Desmond had an idea, after seeing some servants moving around the place to carry out their tasks without being questioned; Desmond had the idea of ??not being a disciple of the sect but a servant.

The idea was perfect after all Mei was a main disciple of the sect and according to what she had said it was not uncommon for such disciples to have servants, Mei did not have any, but that did not mean that she could not have one now.

There were only two issues that could be a problem, in the first instance Desmond was a man and it might be strange for a young girl like Mei to have a male servant; the other problem was that Desmond needed a suitable pretext to ask Mei to hire him as a servant.

But who was Desmond Astryd? He was a womanizer whose ability to lie to women was second only to his ability to take other human lives.

Of course, none of those things were cause for pride, but at least they were useful, so in less than two minutes Desmond concocted a lie true enough to fool Mei.

Desmond told Mei, about how he lost his parents and how he had gotten into the habit of keeping a low profile to avoid attracting the same kind of calamity that took his parents away, he explained to Mei that he wanted to join the sect, but he did not want to attract attention because he only wanted to learn the basics of martial arts to be someone in life.

Following his partially true tragic story, Mei’s eyes became watery as she recalled her difficulties and she felt closer to Desmond because of the pain they shared.

Of course, when Desmond heard that Mei had also lost her parents in a tragedy and how she had joined the sect to obtain the necessary strength to never be a victim again; Desmond couldn’t help but feel guilty for lying to the girl even if he found it necessary.

At the end of the day Desmond was human and Mei was not only a very beautiful girl, but she was also a very charismatic and lively girl that anyone would find charming, at least that’s what Desmond thought; so Desmond told himself that he would try not to harm the girl in the least while he was in this world and perhaps reward the girl for her help.

With that reminder in the back of his mind, Desmond passed through the door of the roaming cloud sect under the care of Mei who took him to the place where he would be registered as a servant of the sect.